Mark Rey: Public land laws are due for an overhaul

Thursday, December 07 2006 @ 12:15 AM MST Contributed by: Admin Views: 265 by Richard Werst The system of laws governing public land management in the United States is disjointed and archaic, according to Mark Rey, Undersecretary of Agriculture for Natural Resources and Environment. Addressing those gathered for a conference on “Challenges Facing the U.S. Forest Service,” presented by the University of Montana’s O’Connor Center for the Rocky Mountain West, the keynote speaker referred to the Multiple Use Sustained Yield Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the National Forest Management Act, and the Federal Land and Policy Management Act as process-oriented measures with broad and lofty goals. He deemed other laws such as the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act Zero Discharge Standard “absolutist proscriptions.” “The administration of the laws are governed by different agencies with different levels of expertise,” Rey told the group, adding that the various agencies have different objectives and missions; different outlooks on the acceptable level of risk in their decision making, and on addressing or attempting to address the very same policy questions…all while they are bearing in mind the Jeffersonian principle that laws should change as society changes and institutions should keep up with the times. In many respects his comments echoed the sentiments of former Chief of the U.S. Forest Service Jack Ward Thomas, who had addressed the conference earlier in the day. Referring to the Forest Service through the use of an analogy, Thomas had told the group that the best horse in the government’s stable was cross-hobbled. “She can run like no other before,” he said. Take off the hobbles, remove the blindfold, ease up on the spurs and let her run. As a way of bringing his point about the antiquated nature of the existing laws, Rey pointed out that the Environmental Policy Act was enacted by Congress in 1969 and has never since been amended or modified; that the Endangered Species Act was passed in 1973, was last amended in the early 1980s, and is now extremely overdue for re-authorization; the National Forest Management Act became law in 1976 and was amended significantly only once in 1977, and the Federal Land and Policy Management Act that was enacted in 1976 has not been significantly amended. Laws are tools to enable decision makers in doing their job, Rey said, and these tools are dull and inefficient—similar to the slide rule and a mainframe computer using punch cards. Despite believing that the current system of laws is overdue for an overhaul, Rey believes that over the last several years the Forest Service has played a very important role in the environmental progress that the nation has made, and he disagrees with the notion that the nation is stuck in gridlock driven by past conflict. He told the audience that the most recent EPA air quality report delivered the extremely positive news that over the last 30 years air pollution from the 6 major air pollutants of concern, has decreased 48 percent while over the exact same time period the economy has grown by 154 percent, our population 39 percent and our energy consumption by 42 percent. Our citizens enjoy one of the safest, and cleanest water supplies in the world, he said, adding that over the last three decades the country has doubled the number of American citizens who benefit from advanced modern wastewater treatment. On the eve of celebrating the 1972 Clean Water Act we have dramatically improved the quality of our water and the health of our aquatic system, he told the group, such that in 2005 there was not only a reversing of the loss, but a net increase in wetland habitat. In general, he said, the progress made by the last several Congresses has created a Federal Land / National Wilderness system that far exceeds the ambitions of the early proponents of the concept fifty years ago, and made our public lands the envy of most of the world’s nations. For the future, according to Rey, the country is in the midst of a welcome and developing trend towards cooperative conservation that will affect the future of forestry…and the Forest Service in particular. This is due in large part to an Executive order given by the President in August of 2004 — an order directing all Federal agencies and Departments that were working in the natural resources and environmental areas to look for ways to involve the public in both a cooperative manner and a collaborative fashion in their decision making. Shortly after the order was given, it was followed by a White House conference in St. Louis — the first White House conference in over 40 years, he said, with the last one discussing the Beautification of America, and hosted by then First Lady Lady-Bird Johnson in 1964. During the St. Louis conference it was noted more than once that the country is entering into a fourth chapter in conservation, Rey said, one that is focused on restoration, not just protection. ### More next week on the future of the U.S. Forest Service gleaned from information provided by speakers Mark Rey, Jack Ward Thomas, and Mitch Friedman, Executive Director of Conservation Northwest.

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